President Obama, who as an Illinois state lawmaker objected to requiring doctors to provide medical care for infants who survive abortions, has been issued a challenge by March for Life officials, who today rallied in Washington to mark the 36th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking state bans on abortion.

Obama had been invited to address the annual march on the mall in Washington, which typically has attracted hundreds of thousands every year since 1974. Instead of participating, Obama issued a statement affirming his support for abortion, calling it a “woman’s right to choose” and encouraging finding “common ground” to expand contraception, health information and preventative services.

Former President Bush addressed rally participants during his tenure, often by telephone, encouraging them in their efforts to build a nation in which every life is protected, including the unborn.

Just a year ago, Bush said, “We aspire to build a society where each one of us is welcomed in life and protected in law. We haven’t arrived, but we are making progress.”

He continued, “This America is nurtured by people like you, who speak up for the weak and the innocent. This America is the destiny of a people whose founding document speaks of the right to life that is a gift of our Creator, not a grant of the state.”

March for Life officials confirmed they invited Obama for the 2009 event, but absent his participation, they posted a challenge on the Internet.

“As a candidate, President-Elect Obama made two important campaign promises: first, that he will be president of all of the people, and also that he will make change. Then, as president of all the people, which includes preborn humans, he must educate himself about the evils over-flowing our American culture from Roe v. Wade,” the challenge said.

“They are the evils of denying worth to a whole class of innocent preborn humans. They are the evils of denying protection of the unalienable right to life of preborn humans in existence at fertilization. They are the same evils which America suffered by having to put down slavery and the holocaust.”

The campaign said Obama must learn that on his inauguration day alone an estimated 3,000 pregnant mothers were “brutalized physically and emotionally by surgical abortion, and 3,000 innocent preborn human boys and girls … killed intentionally.”

The challenge states to be president “of all of the people”:

“He must watch the evil deed of a surgical abortion to know what it looks like to pull off the head, arms and legs of a preborn human – there is a commercial killing site within a few blocks of the White House.

“He must learn about abortion evil by talking with suffering post-abortion mothers and fathers.

“He must talk with an adult who survived the violations of abortion.

“He must learn about the love and work of selfless pro-lifers who provide free services for pregnant mothers.

“He must join with us volunteer March for Life defenders who stand up for change which overturns Roe vs. Wade because we cannot tolerate that our beloved country continues to participate in the intentional genocide of an estimated 50,000,000 innocent preborn human boys and girls since Roe v. Wade.”

March for Life officials pulled no punches in their challenge.

“The purpose of the 36th annual March for Life is to educate Washington Officialdom and the entire American citizenry and media that the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade opinion is illicit because it attempts to authorize the intentional killing of innocent preborn humans with impunity,” they wrote. “But, as we learn from the principles of the Nuremberg Trials, the intentional killing of innocent humans is a crime against humanity which neither a public official nor any human person has the authority to legalize. Nevertheless, in Roe v. Wade, our Supreme Court unfortunately decriminalized the intentional killing of preborn children— for now.”

The organization said in its statement, “President-Elect Obama must learn that no one owns the right to life of another human in existence at fertilization because we Americans are governed by self-evident truths ‘that all Men are created equal … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life . . .’”

The explanation said a pregnant mother and/or her preborn child could die in trauma, “but no one may intentionally kill either innocent born or preborn human to save the life of the other. Abortion is never therapy.”

Nellie J. Gray, president of March for Life, delivered to Obama an invitation to the rally.

“We request that would come to speak to us,” she wrote. “Why? Because America needs your strong leadership as president of all of the people to stop the intentional killing of an estimated 3,000 preborn boys and girls each day.

“Abortion evil in America is error which officials and citizenry of both church and state have a duty to stop and can unite to stop. The dreadful killing goes on because abortionists and media keep the innocent blood of preborns out-of-sight, which keeps many Americans so passive to the evil of killing that they tolerate or even support a choice to murder preborns,” she told Obama.

“Mr. Obama, we hear about genocide in far-off lands, and America is asked to help stop that evil. Certainly America wants to help stop all genocide evil – foreign and domestic. Since the illicit Roe v. Wade, America suffers genocide of an estimated 50,000,000 preborn boys and girls. And, since the March for Life Rally last year, an estimated 1,300,000 preborn humans have been intentionally killed out-of-sight,” she told him.

Sean O’Hare, a spokesman for the LifeHQ.org campaign, told WND the plan is to bring together people who want to defend the right to life in the U.S.

“It’s extremely vital that we coordinate all of our resources and work together,” he said. “Between [the pro-abortion Freedom of Choice Act] and a lot of other measures, they could undo the progress of the last 36 years.”

The program includes a coordinated effort among participants in the annual March for Life in the face of Obama’s stated plans to abolish all state and local restrictions on abortion and to demand that U.S. taxpayers pay for abortions around the globe.

The new program by LifeHQ.org urges March for Life participants to send a text message that will add them to a database of activists in attendance, officials said.

A second part of the campaign will allow people who could not attend to join the same effort.

“By the end of next week we anticipate having 500,000 pro-life activists in our database,” the organization announced. LifeHQ.org said the information will allow the leveraging “that grass-roots power to organize and raise money for pro-life causes on a continual and project-based basis.”